Recently, a Colorado lawyer received disciplinary action for employing artificial intelligence to generate fake case citations in a legal brief and then lying about the situation. The presiding disciplinary judge’s imposition of punishment is the first to involve the inappropriate use of AI in Colorado. The state Supreme Court has not weighed in on the legal and professional repercussions of utilizing AI but has recognized that the court must educate itself about emerging technology.
The agreed-upon facts of the circumstances are the attorney’s firm took on a client who had previously been pro se. After an El Paso County judge denied the client’s motion for summary judgment in a civil case, the disciplined attorney was to draft a motion to set aside the decision. The attorney had never written a motion to set aside and employed the AI program ChatGPT to search for cases that seemed to help his client’s position. Moreover, he used the AI case citations in his brief without verifying their accuracy. At the hearing, the attorney and his paralegal exchanged messages where he had admitted that the case cites from ChatGPT were garbage and he did not know what to do. Additionally, he admitted to not checking the citations. Finally, the attorney admitted his wrongs and untruthfulness and said he was “panicked.” He filed a corrected motion, which was denied on separate grounds from the “fictitious case citations.” Ultimately, the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel agreed he violated his professional duties to act competently, diligently, and honestly. However, since he had no other disciplinary record, the parties agreed on a two-year suspension, only 90 days which he would serve as long as he otherwise completed a probationary period.
Earlier this year, a federal judge in New York handed down sanctions for a pair of lawyers who used an AI chatbot that similarly generated false case citations. The judge noted the effect of such misconduct is to force the opposing party to spend time and money exposing the deceit, weaken clients’ arguments and promote skepticism of the legal system.
Source: Disciplinary judge approves lawyer’s suspension for using ChatGPT to generate fake cases
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